Vax was used to waking in the middle of the night. Normally it was from some sort of dream or nightmare, the subject of which was rooted in a past adventure and enough to jerk him back to consciousness. Beholders, creatures of the Underdark, a rakshasa, the Briarwoods stealing the very life from him, controlling his mind -- very nearly taking his sister from him.
It was the last that plagued his sleep tonight, except it wasn't the Briarwoods that had been at fault and there was no nearly about it. His dreams were filled with dragon attacks, a tear filled conversation with his sister about their mother and the attack that had taken her from them. He dreamed of a fallen Emon and finding Gilmore just steps away from death. He dreamed of vestiges and Keyleth and yet another beholder and then a desperate plea with the Raven Queen as he clutched Vex'ahlia's lifeless body to his chest.
And as his sister woke, sitting up and taking in her surroundings with questions and a need for an explanation that Grog so easily answered, so did Vax. He sat up himself, a bird call and a flutter of wings drawing his eyes to the small window of his bedroom. There was no sign that a bird had actually been there. It had almost definitely been a figment of his imagination. The dreams, though, were anything but. As he sat in his bed, he realized that they were memories as real as the other ones that he would revisit in his dreams. He had lived them, even though he hadn't when he'd gone to bed.
Lifting up his hand to reach behind him, Vax tentatively pressed his fingers to the skin where his brand from the Clasp had been when he'd gone to bed. Now, the skin was raised in the shape of a druid's hand. He could remember the pain of Keyleth's flame pressed there so viscerally, just as he could remember the pain in his heart when he had looked at his twin's lifeless body on the stone ground.
Without even realizing it, Vax was on his feet and out his bedroom door. Vex's bedroom was only a few doors down from his, but he still hesitated. First, right outside his own door, where he glanced down to the quarters that Shaun was staying in. Then, as he turned and took a few steps, to the door that led to Keyleth's room, which was filled with her things, but not their missing family member herself. Several different emotions struck through him as he faltered between the two, guilt, confusion, and longing chief among them, before he pushed himself forward to Vex's door.
Vax stood in front of the door for several long moments, his thoughts warring within his mind. He stepped back twice, almost going back to his own room. He raised his hand once, so close to knocking. In the end, he did neither of those things, instead settling on the floor, knees pulled to his chest as he closed his eyes and willed his breath to steady.
When Vex awoke, it was with a shock that almost took her breath away. Had Winter suddenly come to Vallo? Was that to blame for the cold that permeated her bones so deep that she worried she may never be warm again? A few blinks against her sleep later, Vex allowed herself to filter through the dreams that felt more like memories that had plagued her seemingly from the moment she’d closed her eyes. Dragons, battles they couldn’t win, a search for vestiges. None of it had been familiar to her that night when she’d retired to her room but now they felt as real to her as any other experience she’d had in her short life. She recalled Grog’s claims of dragons in Emon and she knew--she knew--that she’d somehow suddenly woken up a bit closer to the full picture than she’d been before.
She wrapped her arms around herself, trying fruitlessly to rub warmth back into them. The window was still closed and she didn’t think the room’s temperature had dropped significantly, but still the chill remained. The last thing she remembered was Percy triggering a trap they had missed but that didn’t explain the physical reaction to her memories, either. Shifting back down into the bed, Vex pulled her covers more tightly around her, trying to fight the way her body now shivered and process all of the things she’d just lived through in the span of a few hours.
It only took a few moments to realize that sleep would not come easily again. Perhaps a walk outside in the warm Summer night would help, or slipping into her brother’s room to demand comfort. Another idea began to form, too, that involved finding the inevitably awake Percy in his laboratory, and she wasn’t sure which idea she’d pursue when she opened her bedroom door. Her thoughts were interrupted, however, by the sudden appearance of her sleeping brother falling into her room from where he’d apparently been curled up inside the frame.
“Vax, what…?” Vex asked, kneeling down without hesitation to help steady him.
Sleep had felt unlikely when Vax had found himself in some shade of comfortable when he'd leaned against Vex's door, but sheer exhaustion had seemed to allow it to come as he came to. He didn't have time to right himself as his body fell into the doorway, stopped only by his sister's steadying hands. Though it hadn't been too long since he had taken up his protective station, he still blinked blearily, trying to remember just why he was there. He looked up to Vex, brow furrowed for just a moment -- and then it all came back.
He felt his heart squeeze in his chest, an echo of the pain that he had felt when he had seen his twin's lifeless body on the stone ground. There she was in front of him, alive and well; and yet, it was so easy to conjure up the image of the opposite.
Part of him wanted to do what he always did. He wanted to get to his feet and walk away, hurrying to disappear into the first bit of shadows he could find and return -- well, eventually. But the part of Vax that perhaps needed his sister so much more than he thought she needed him won out. Sitting up, he moved forward and wrapped his arms tightly around Vex, pulling her toward him in an embrace. Almost immediately, he felt tears in his eyes and he closed them in a fruitless effort to stem the flow.
“Vax, honestly, what’s wrong?” Vex asked, her arms going around him, too, the moment she recovered from the surprise of the sudden embrace. A nervous spurt of laughter escaped as she tried to wrack her brain for what may have caused this level of emotion. “Is everyone all right? Did someone go home?” Her heart dropped at the thought that they might have lost someone. Was Percy still here? What would she do if he was gone?
The new memories still pressed heavy on her, but she pushed them aside for the moment to focus instead on her twin. She knew him almost better than she knew herself, even if sometimes he tried to pretend like he could not be known. She knew him well enough to understand that this wasn’t normal, that he’d sooner walk away and avoid his feelings altogether unless he was utterly incapable of doing so. And that knowledge was what worried her so much right now. If she hadn’t already been frozen to her core, she would be now as he held her close and attempted to hide the shudders that coursed through him.
He was crying.
Vex lifted a hand to the back of his head and held her brother closer, closing her eyes as she willed his pain away from him. She’d have happily taken it as her own. “Talk to me,” she demanded quietly. “I’m here, tell me what’s wrong.”
Were he with anyone else, Vax would have been embarrassed. Not that he wasn't in tune with his emotions; he may have walked away from situations when they became too much for his heart and mind to deal with, but he wasn't afraid to feel and even talk about them once he'd gotten a grip on the situation. But, Vex was here. Vex was alive. He had seen enough to know that she was alive in Exandria as well.
It didn't change that, for just a few long moments, she hadn't been. Just like their mother.
After a few moments, Vax felt himself calm at least marginally. He straightened up, his head still bowed as he avoided meeting his sister's gaze. "I remember things from home." Vax hesitated a moment, glancing once toward Vex's face and then away once more. "Dragons destroying Emon. Finding Gilmore nearly dead. Looking for vestiges." He hesitated once more, his breath getting caught in his throat. This time when he looked at his sister, he forced himself not to look away. "You. The Raven Queen."
Vex frowned. Was it possible that they would both go to sleep and wake up remembering the same things? Yes, she thought. There was no other way for it to happen because they were forever and always on the same path together. That was how they worked, and it should be no surprise that this universe had made sure to give them the same memories. Despite the cold, she felt relieved--relieved that she wouldn’t need to explain what had happened, and that she understood at least a bit of what had her brother so shaken now.
Placing steadying hands on either side of his face to make sure he couldn’t look away again, she said, “I remember, too. Most of it, anyway. I don’t remember anything of consequence about the Raven Queen, but the rest of it sounds right. Is this because of Gilmore? Or...or are you thinking of Mom, too? The dragons? We’ll defeat them, you know. I have to believe it. And Shaun--he’s going to be all right, and he’s here and he’s proof that he has a future.”
It almost did feel like a little of everything had brought Vax to this moment, but he knew it wasn't the whole truth. He also felt a bit of relief at the knowledge that Vex remembered things; it was unsurprising, but a relief all the same. He didn't know if he had it in him to explain the events that had led them to that cavern. He would, it seemed, have to explain what had happened inside the cavern itself, though. That felt like even more a feat than anything else.
Vax lifted one of his hands, his long fingers wrapping gently around Vex's wrist. For just the briefest of moments, he considered shielding her from the truth. It was what he might have done back home, but they were so far from Exandria now. The rules didn't feel the same. When he spoke, his voice was low and as gentle as he could manage in that moment. "You died, Vex. Kashaw had to bring you back."
Vex’s hands abruptly fell to her side as she took a step back, shaking her head. The cold that had been slowly, slowly receding was back in full force. “Wh-what?” A nervous laugh. “Are you sure? I--are you sure I wasn’t just unconscious, darling?” But she’d woken up to his tear-stained face, the feeling of his arms so tightly around her. “Me,” she whispered, “dead? What happened?”
As Vex took a step back, Vax took one himself. His arms came to cross in front of him protectively, his shoulders slumped forward as he took the briefest of moments to replay the events he now remembered so clearly.
"I had been down in the pit," Vax said, his voice a bit flat as he narrated when he could remember. "Grog helped me out and when I got to the surface, there you were." He looked up at Vex, a pained expression there. "You were lying on the ground -- some sort of trap or something had gone off. I tried to feed you a potion and nothing happened, so Kash started the ritual and -- and." Vax stopped, shaking his head and turning just slightly so he wasn't facing his sister directly. "Percy, Zahra, and I aided in the ritual."
Vax hesitated, his eyes closing. He raised one of his hands and pressed his fingers to his temple, knowing that his twin wasn't going to like what he was about to tell her. He didn't like it, though he knew he would do it again, a thousand times more, if it meant keeping Vex'ahlia alive and safe. "I offered myself to the Raven Queen, in your place."
Clutching one hand in front of the other to stop them from trembling, Vex regained the step she’d taken back. She had been dead, the trap had killed her. She tried to imagine it having been the other way around and the thought near killed her right there on the spot the way it gripped and pulled angrily at her heart. If it had been her, she would have done anything in this world and the next to fix it without a moment’s hesitation. And yet…
And yet the roles had not been reversed. She would always, always choose Vax’s life over her own and the fact that it sounded like he was sacrificing his own her hers was...it was unacceptable. It was wrong. There was no world worth living in that didn’t have her brother in it, too. Her family.
She shook her head again, the braid from the night before fraying from troubled sleep shifted with the movement. “No,” she said, feeling the desperation boiling and bubbling and erupting in between the cracks of that single syllable. “Tell me you’re mistaken, Vax’ildan. Tell me you didn’t take my place. I swear it, if you make me go back to that world to find you gone, I will kill you myself. I swear it. What did you do, Vax’ildan? What did you do?”
Eyes kept closed, Vax took in every word from his sister. He had to; if the roles had been reversed and he had been the one laying on the ground and she would have been the one that begged for his life with her own as payment, he would have reacted exactly the same. He would have been just as angry and terrified at the prospect of a lifetime ahead of him without her by his side in some way. They had been together since before they were born and the thought of there being a time when they wouldn't, when their distance would be so impossibly permanent -- it was terrifying.
It had also, of course, been exactly why he had done it himself. There was more to it than that, though. Vax might not have been able to imagine a life without Vex and his bargaining with a god could have left her condemned to that life in his stead, but even worse than being without her was the thought of Vex'ahlia's life cut short. She deserved a long life of happiness, not death at the bottom of a cavern because of some god's forsaken treasure.
"It was the only thing I could do, Vex'ahlia." Finally, his eyes opened and he turned to look at his sister. "You weren't going to die -- you couldn't die. You have far too much ahead of you for it to be cut short like that." He waved a hand sharply, dismissing his words. "It doesn't matter anyway. You woke up and I didn't die."
Vex let out a short, harsh laugh. “Oh, it doesn’t matter. Right, right. So what does that mean? I wake up, you don’t die. Are you trying to tell me this Raven Queen just saw it in her heart to let me live?” She took another step forward, vaguely aware that there was little privacy in the way her words echoed in the hallway of the Keep, and grabbed his wrist. “I need you to understand something. No, I need you to hear my words. You have just as much life to live as I do. You have every bit as much potential as I do. The next time you decide my life is worth throwing yours away, don’t. Don’t make me do this without you, Vax’ildan. I would never forgive you.”
She stood there for a moment, letting the conversation settle in around them as she fought back angry, hot tears and the panic she felt at possibly losing him.
And when the moment came and passed, she pulled her brother to her and wrapped her arms around him again, refusing to let him go or to let him walk away. “I love you so much, Scrawny. I don’t deserve a twin like you, but thank you for being my twin, anyway. Thank you...for not letting me die. I’m still angry with you, you ass, but...thank you.”
She closed her eyes and let the tears flow as her chin rested firmly atop his shoulder.
Vex's arms wrapping around Vax were timed well, as he had just started debating simply taking his leave of the situation and walking away. It wouldn't have helped anything, though, and he found himself grateful that his twin had stopped him before he could even do it. His arms wrapped around Vex on instinct, one hand in her loose braid to hold her close. Turning his head, he pressed a warm kiss to the side of his sister's head.
He couldn't apologize. Doing so would be dishonest, even if he was truly sorry that his actions had given her reason to be upset, and while he didn't talk to his sister about everything, he had a personal rule to be honest with her about the things that he did. There was something he could say, that he was liberal with saying already, but still could say so much more.
"I love you, Vex." Vax let his chin drop, mirroring his sister as it came to rest on her own shoulder. "You'll always have me, all right?"
Vex nodded, deciding not to press further tonight while they were both still so raw. Instead, she let herself take comfort in the fact that he was here, solidly in her arms, and the fact that it seemed like they had time to figure things out back home, too. “I fucking better,” she replied. For now, this would have to be enough.